Wangari Maathai

Kenyan environmentalist and politician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 (1940–2011)

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Lived 1940–2011, aged 71

Wikipedia
107 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1940–2011
Aged 71
Known for
The 11th Hour
2007

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

She turned the simple act of planting a tree into a mass movement that reforested Kenya and won her the Nobel Peace Prize — the first African woman to receive it.

Biography

About

Wangari Maathai came to the United States through the Kennedy Airlift, earned degrees in Kansas and Pittsburgh, then returned to Kenya to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to receive a Ph.D., from the University of Nairobi. In 1977 she founded the Green Belt Movement, linking environmental conservation with women's rights and transforming ecological debate into direct action: millions of trees planted across the country. The work earned her the Right Livelihood Award in 1984 for "converting the Kenyan ecological debate into mass action for reforestation." She entered parliament…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai

said24 Apr 2006

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.

— Speech at Goldman Awards, San Francisco (24 April 2006)

Wangari Maathai

said2006

We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own—indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty, and wonder.

— Her memoir, Unbowed: A Memoir (2006).

Wangari Maathai

said10 Dec 2004

As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream.

— Nobel lecture (10 December 2004)

Wangari Maathai

said10 Oct 2004